


Destroy

by gresniandjeo29



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Eventual Romance, Explicit Language, F/M, Sexual Content, Sole Survivor (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-26 19:55:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 5,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6253792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gresniandjeo29/pseuds/gresniandjeo29
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War weary veteran, Caleb Shepard, won the war with the Reapers, destroying the synthetic threat. Being at war, meant not being at home. After saving the galaxy, Caleb struggles to pick up pieces of a fragmented life, succumbing to substance abuse and compulsive behavior. Can a marginalized renegade reclaim life, honor and peace? Can a renegade become a paragon?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> AU. Canon divergence, timeline divergence, all forms of divergence imaginable in an alternate universe.

It all started with the damn plaques. The smaller one went up first. That was how it went, how it had to go. The bigger one took a place of prominence in the center of the board. Admiral David Anderson. Commanding Officer. Mentor. Friend. An Alliance man that the whole crew regardless of race had known and trusted. _Myself included...closest thing I had to a dad since..._ He closed his eyes to shut down the thought. Those times were far away and buried deep, dwarfed by the losses of the day. _I shot him. I shot him myself._ He hadn't been in control, but he had felt his fingers squeeze the trigger on a properly leveled weapon properly aimed at--

 

The group was silent, befitting the gravity of the moment. The smaller name seemed to have gone unnoticed. Some probably thought it didn't even belong on the board, some may not even have known who it belonged to. He knew who it belonged to. He knew everything he could learn and everything he needed to know about her. He knew every inch. She hadn't been on the Normandy long. But she was with him, then. They went rogue together. But once the operation was back in Alliance hands, that left her out of the loop. _And unprotected._

 

That was how it started, after the end...what was supposed to be the end. He turned away from the assembly. He was bleeding under his blues, but still standing in them. _Doing my duty._ Dull aches littered his body, only broken up by searing pain and the alternating hot cold sensation of wounds that were reopening. He dragged himself to the MedBay. Once Dr. Chakwas had glued him back together he wandered to his cabin in an opiate haze. Undressing was a trial too brutal to follow by dressing, and the meds were numbing more than pain. He wanted sleep, oblivion, rest. _If I just stop...maybe I can be lucky enough...just not to start again._


	2. Chapter 2

"Commander Shepard," her stern and cultured voice was cutting against his broken glass thinking. _Fuck. I didn't say it right._ "Your wounds have healed well beyond need for prescription pain killers. It would be both unethical and against protocol for me to dispense them." Her expression was neutral, not a line in her face, but he could see her mind turning behind her eyes.

 

"But I still have pain. Phantom pains. I read on the extranet that it's common." He paused, trying not to sound panicked by her refusal. She'd smell a rat and do more than refuse him. "I can't sleep at night, the way it sometimes stabs--"

 

She interrupted. "Pain medications don't address phantom pain, as it is rarely physical in origin. Moreover, they run the risk of causing a lasting dependency." She took a moment to look him over, before catching his eyes with hers. "Now, unless you are telling me that I should dispense opioids to be used in place of a sleep aid--"

 

"Nope, I got it." He turned to go. He knew where the door was. _Shit_. _What am I going to do now?_ He was used to getting the job done one way or another, and continuing this conversation was just wasting time. He'd find another solution.

 

"Commander, I must suggest strongly that you submit yourself to counseling."

 

"Is that an order, Dr. Chakwas?" he tried to call up some of the humor of earlier days. "No, Commander," her tone said that she was clearly having none of it. "But I'm afraid that in light of this conversation and your evident refusal, I am forced to notify Alliance dispensaries. Your only option will be to attend counseling and the only medications you will have access to will be prescibed by a psychiatrist." His look must have hardened with rage, but hers remained the same. "You will do as you will, Commander. I must act by my conscience, and as both doctor and friend I cannot enable you on a path to addiction."

 

He felt his face relax. _No. No, you can't. Not you._ She was someone who didn't change. She had always been the best and he should have known that she would never play a role in his quest for oblivion. He turned away without reply and headed for the docking bay. It didn't look like he'd be getting high tonight, but nothing was stopping him from getting drunk. No one could prevent that. When he'd been on the pain meds, he hadn't had the opportunity to mix them. Apparently, that was dangerous. _Dangerous_ , he thought with a darkening smile. What was dangerous to him as this point? He had saved the Citadel, saved Earth, saved the galaxy...couldn't save her, though...she was off on her own, alone when the time came...

 

Sometimes he wondered how it had gone down. Had she been taken by surprise? Had she seen it coming? Had she gone down fighting? Had she thought of him in the last second? Part of him desperately wanted to know, and an equal part didn't...but he thought of her. _At least 20 times a day..._


	3. Chapter 3

No one understood him anymore. Only one person ever had. When he thought about it, isolation was a normal part of his life. It was part of being the sole survivor of his colony, part of being in command. It was part of him. If anything, it held more space in him now than ever. He was decorated, marginalized in terms of his command--grounded, and slowly becoming irrelevant. He had saved the Citadel, Terra and the galaxy, but now he was a ghost at every party--an uncomfortable, spectral guest. Spectral... _Spectre_. He chuckled darkly to himself, then watched as the crowd ebbed away from the sound.

 

"Commander!" the strong voice came from behind him in the crowd.

 

As he turned, he was greeted by Lt. James Vega, one of his best heavies. Vega had entered the N7 program as soon as they had disembarked. He wasn't surprised, disappointed or anything really. Vega was a go getter, this was his time to go get.

 

"How goes, LT?" He enjoyed dated slang.

 

"It goes, Commander." Vega leaned in and lowered his voice. "It goes a lot more slowly than it did under your command."

 

"Hardly surprising, LT. We did all the heavy lifting. All those kids in the N7 program...it's all gonna be theory to them. That's where your edge is. Stay sharp and power through." Not having had parents, or much constructive encouragement, he always felt at a loss when mentoring, so he just told others what he had told himself when he was younger. Anderson had been good at it. _But he's gone. I pulled the trigger._ He tried to save his people. Sometimes, he wished he had chosen the synthesis stream. _Or just turned the gun on myself._ Of course, he hadn't known then...that she wasn't waiting...that her time had already come. Information like that made decisions really simple. There wasn't much point in thinking about it. None of them could go back.

 

"Commander?" Vega's voice brought him back to the present.

 

"Listen, Vega. I want out of here. You wanna go get a real drink? Check out some dancers?"

 

"Now you're talking my language, Commander!" James winked. "I gotcha covered, sir. Let's hit Purgatory for a little R&R."

 

Purgatory would do.

 

Vega knew lots of people, mostly marines. It helped to be in a group of younger, wilder men. He wasn't self conscious about his consumption. Every round was part of a game, a challenge. He didn't feel scrutinized, judged or singled out. He drank until he was just walking. He was about to leave, but on a whim, turned back to Vega.

 

"Hey, Vega. where do you get all that ink done, anyway?"

 

"You thinking about getting something done, Shepard? I gotta warn you, I don't go to some fancy parlor..."

 

"Sounds real interesting, when you put it that way, Vega. Yeah. Let me give it a shot." "Well, you're definitely in the right shape for it," the lieutenant joked good naturedly. James was a hard ass, tough in battle and all. But he was also a good comrade.

 

The needle didn't feel like he thought it would.


	4. Chapter 4

He woke up in his apartment on the commons. His mouth tasted like cat piss. He rubbed his forehead. _Whatever cat piss tastes like._ His head was splitting and his stomach was threatening to empty itself through the readiest void. He stumbled for the bathroom and mostly aimed his stomach's contents into the bowl. He figured his mouth had upgraded from cat piss to cat piss and drunk vomit alley way.

 

Using the sink for balance, he got up off of the bathroom floor; rinsed his hands, face and mouth. Staring hard at his own drawn face in the mirror, he paused to examine an area of him that seemed to ache with dull heat on his shoulder. At first, it took him by surprise, but he remembered at the sight of it. The tattoo was the Spectre emblem emblazoned thick and black across a starry sky covering his entire deltoid. That's what being a Spectre had meant to him. _Freedom._ The freedom of never ending sky. No one, not even the Council, had been able to command him there. He used his judgement. It had made him rich, famous, richer and more famous.

 

But that wasn't what was on his mind at the moment. He could feel pain. And not the kind of pain that meant he wasn't doing well. The ache was good. It was good to feel something.

 

He was still wearing his clothes from the night before. How had he gotten back here? He supposed James must have dropped him off and left him where he lay. That was fair enough. He wasn't expecting pajamas and a lullaby. He stepped into the shower, scrubbed himself sober and threw on a pair of sweatpants. He had always run warm, he thought absently, as he made his way to the kitchen. He made coffee and picked up his tablet. His eyes narrowed as he perused his messages. _Oriana_. He had expected a message from her sooner or later. He had awaited it in mixed anticipation and dread. In some strange way, it was a way to see her again. It was also a way to remain connected to her, maintaining contact and protection over her sister. But it was also a means to information that he was not sure he wanted or needed. She was gone, and nothing he could learn about the circumstances surrounding that fact would ever be able to soften it. Miranda Lawson, his partner--his equal, was gone.

 

Suddenly, he had an idea for a way to spend the afternoon.


	5. Chapter 5

He hated Batarians. No avoiding it. He hated them--hated their faces, their voices, their customs...but they did some good ink. He was turning his deltoid into a sleeve cataloging everything that had been right about the Alliance and being a Spectre. He was already thinking ahead to his next sleeve.

 

That would be sure to ruffle some feathers. He was dedicating his left arm to his darker nature...to his time with Cerberus. Collector symbols, hexagon fabric, the SR-2 Normandy, the symbol that put humanity first. _Until it didn't._ Those would just be sleeves. He had so much to say. Wasn't this way as good as any?

 

Oriana had asked him to meet her for dinner on the Presidium. It was a high roller restaurant. As the genetic double to Miranda, he wasn't surprised. And he wasn't disappointed. He hadn't had enough time with Miranda, but he was richer than God, and taking her to those types of places pleased him. Though he saw Oriana as a kid, it still pleased him to spoil her the same way. He'd tell her to order whatever she wanted, everything she wanted--even if she only wanted a taste. He had a long way to go to burn through what he had made. If he did everything right, the last cred swipe would bounce.

 

Shading was beginning on the sleeve. He glanced at the clock. There was time. He'd be bandaged up and dressed in time.


	6. Chapter 6

_This was a mistake_. Maybe. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe it was just the way he knew it would be. It was a shock, seeing her face again. Her face, but not her face. Oriana was growing into womanhood. She wasn't Miranda by any stretch, but she was the way he imagined her before he met her, before she found Cerberus...the way she would have looked when she was on the run.

 

Oriana wasn't on the run anymore, though. He and her big sister had seen to that. Just like her sister, she excelled at anything she put her hand and mind to. They greeted each other with no small level of awkwardness. She knew him to an extent. She knew what he had done for her. But she didn't know him like her sister did. Everything she did know was second hand.

 

They sat down and ordered drinks. He was feeling more awkward by the minute, so he made his a double. He tried not to down it with the uncomfortability that he actually felt. At first, he couldn't think of anything to say. Thankfully, or perhaps not, Oriana chose to open dialog.

 

"I think we had better both get doubles on the next round, Commander," she was teasing, but not completely. It seemed that the situation was uncomfortable for her as well.

 

"Is it that obvious?" he asked.

 

"You look like you expect me to bite you," she laughed a little.

 

"I guess there's no point in denying, I never expected us to meet under these circumstances." He paused. The whisky was warming his gut and loosening his tongue. "I never expected to see you without Miranda being here. It feels wrong." It felt as wrong as anything could.

 

"I understand. I know what you did for me. For her. But I feel the same way." She was looking at an empty glass. He signaled the waiter.

 

"I need you to understand something else. I don't..."he closed his eyes, trying to gather the thought. "I don't know how much I want to know." He paused again. The waiter arrived with another round. He downed half of his, trying not to show his desperation. "Sometimes, I think I want to know everything. Other times...." he trailed off.

 

"Other times, you don't see the point because nothing will make it better," she finished it neatly for him. He nodded. "I understand that, too. Sometimes, I wish I knew less." She sipped her martini. The first hors d'oeuvre arrived. They began to pick at it in a good natured attempt at friendliness. It wasn't that they were unfriendly. They were strangers and relatives at the same time. He decided to ask about everything he thought Miranda would want to know: school, parents, boys. The first course came and went, much like the second and the third. He ordered wine. He ordered dessert. He ordered cognac. By then, he had learned how to make her laugh. She was laughing then, at some story from his early N7 days. She sipped her cognac and grew quiet.

 

"Shepard," she began,"I'm glad we met. I see why she chose you." That quieted him. He was glad someone saw. He didn't. They just fit. He had always felt lucky, but it had always seemed inevitable that they be together. "Ask me what you want, Shepard," perfect eyes lowered. "Don't leave me to grieve her alone."

 

He swallowed his drink hard and poured himself more. The waiters knew him here. They had left the cognac. It had loosened him up and he threw caution to the wind.

 

"Was she alone? Did she try to fight them alone or...did she try to run?" He tried to contain the rawness in his throat.

 

"Yes. And no." Oriana paused. "She tried to evade attackers and failed. When she failed, she fought. When she fought, she died." Tears began to leak from her eyes. His first instinct was to dry them, but she was not Miranda. He handed her a handkerchief. She took it, but did not bother to stop the rush. _That dignity--she's brave, brave like Miri._ She went on. "She fought. You must know, she fought like never before--" she broke off, emotion overcoming her.

 

He did not follow up with another question immediately. He was beginning to lose himself in reverie. He kept picturing Miranda over the vid-comm, just before the last battle. The battle he fought and won for her. He wanted her there. Not to fight with him, but to be there waiting. He wanted her there. She was in hiding. He told her to come to the front lines. No one could get to her there besides the Reapers, and he was going to beat them. She said she couldn't just then, that she would. Then she started to tell him something. The sound of the Reaper particle beam had interrupted and the connection had been severed.

 

"Oriana, I talked to Miranda via vid-comm before I went after the Catalyst. The line got cut. She was trying to tell me something." He swallowed the contents of his glass, letting the burn dull every sense. "Do you..." he paused again, steeling himself. "Do you know what it was?"

 

Tears leapt and sprung from her eyes. She placed his handkerchief over her eyes, pressing it there as if they were bleeding. Her reaction made him pour them both another before holding a hand out across the table. She found it and squeezed it with violent fervor. Recovering herself, she found the courage to whisper,"Yes." Her other hand went into a pocket and produced something like a holograph which she pressed into his free hand. He looked at her before he looked at it. She was weeping against her hand, holding his hand as if it were her only link to life. It hurt. He didn't care about that. He glanced at the holo. The realization dawning on him, he wrenched his hand from hers. His memory and understand faded with him turning over the table between them, battering it with the chair he had been sitting on.


	7. Chapter 7

It was all a haze. C-Sec officers had rushed the restaurant to take him down. Six Turians rushed him. He could hear Oriana's voice, crying to them to stop, that they didn't understand. He could hear her protests as he was restrained, put in cuffs and led away. He fought them every step of the way and not even because he cared to resist. He knew Bailey would cut him loose in a matter of minutes. But the rage, the frustration, futility and renewed loss, had his blood pounding in his throat; his heart screamed for revenge. It wouldn't be justice. There was no justice. The shock had rendered him sober and it was too early to turn the rage inward. So he fought.

 

He sat in a holding area for ten minutes. In that time, he paced, planting his fists against the wall until the callouses on his knuckles began to fray. Then he became suddenly calm, worrying instead over the dinner bill. He knew the establishment well enough, they knew he was a big spender... _they know I'm good for it._ He just hoped they hadn't made Oriana pay. The thought made him sick. Miranda had always admired him, and it helped, knowing a classy and worldly woman saw something in him. He never got over being poor, being the only one who lived. His parents went to the colonies to build a better life. They didn't survive the attempt. He survived and he built. Ever since ending the Reaper threat, it seemed all he did was survive and destroy. 

 

Thinking of Miranda Lawson in her office on the Normandy quickly brought him back into the mire.  _The holo...that was--_ he halted the thought. He halted it deliberately. If he thought of that now, he was going to bring the whole place down. The rage was crawling back up, starting in his toes and resting in the redness behind his eyes. He held it in check as Bailey entered the room. He held it back as he talked. Bailey asked and he answered. "It's personal."

 

"Well, Shepard, I think after all you've done, you're entitled to some "personal" matters. You've been under the galaxy's looking glass for way too long." Bailey paused. "You know I'm not going to hold you. You know I'm not even going to tell you to watch yourself. But listen, Shepard." He lowered his voice, leaning in. "Try and aim it at someone who deserves it. I can't keep cleaning up after you on the Presidium." Bailey waited for him to meet his eyes. "Do we, uh, have an understanding, Commander?"

 

 _I should find some trash that needs taking out. Makes sense. May as well make myself useful instead of interrupting some Counselor's dinner._ "We might. You have any...suggestions about a better hangout?" He met Bailey's eyes with a hard stare.

 

"There's a new club on Zakeera ward--called Severance. Don't know much about it, but I hear things. Might find what you're looking for there."

 

"Sounds interesting. Might check it out right now...if we're done here...?" He trailed off. What was he looking for? A drink? A fight? Both? 

 

 __"You're free to go. Take care of yourself, Commander."


	8. Chapter 8

Severance was a real dive.  _More than a dive,_ he thought to himself.  _This place is a fucking pit._ He started to the bar. All the warmth of the drinks and dinner had worn off. His omni-tool had been ringing off the hook.  _Probably Oriana trying to check up on me._ He hadn't answered. His mind was in shambles since laying eyes on that holo. He didn't feel like he could withstand her concern. He ordered a drink that felt like liquid glass going down as he sized up the action.

 

Bailey had been right. The place was teaming with plenty of deserving elements. He imagined C-Sec wasn't close to being able to police this place, and if Bailey pointed him in this direction, it also meant they had failed at any attempt at infiltration. That meant that the groups operating here were in an agreement of silence, or worse, all the groups were really one group. Nothing he did here tonight would matter. He wouldn't improve it, he wouldn't worsen it, and no one would care either way. He scored some red sand in the bathroom. He felt pumped and primed as he returned to the bar.

 

"Get away from me, you creep!" he heard a female voice, a dancer at one of the tables, he was sure.  _That's as good a cue as any,_ he thought as he downed his fourth round of liquid glass.

 

"Shepard." He tried to fit a face to the voice he heard, but he found he couldn't open his eyes to focus them. He felt the familiar seasick feeling of a new blossoming hangover. He also felt pain. _Strange._ It felt really good to feel the aches and pinpricks that riddled his torso, there was almost euphoria in the way his eyes had swelled shut and in the way his cheekbones seemed to have victoriously shed the confines of his skin, as if serrated. He sat up and in a wave of vertigo and nausea, quickly turned his head to vomit away from where the voice had been.

 

"Well, shit."

 

The voice still came from his left and by its pitch, timbre and vocabulary was becoming familiar. Then he felt hands on either side of his face. They were not exactly gentle. They were firmly holding him steady for inspection. It didn't feel like military; it was more mercenary. The hands left his face for his rib cage, performing a no-frills exam on that area of his body next. He felt his blood heat up. He tried to speak, but he found his lips sluggish with the weight of bruises and his tongue likewise, but from substance. The word came out in a mumble. "Dzzzack."

 

"Congratu-fucking-lations," she answered flatly. "Long term memory intact. So's most of the rest of you." She paused. "Probably."

 

His laugh came out as a sticky rasping, followed by a cough interspersed with grunts of pain. She smacked the back of his head, which he realized was one place he didn't seem to be injured. It actually felt good compared to the rest of him. He heard her huff and swear. Then she pulled one of his heavy arms over her shoulders. Crouching to lift from her knees, she leaned in close. That felt good too. Closeness. Suddenly he felt very alone...more alone than he had been passed out on the floor of...well, he didn't really know where he was. She was strong, he knew that, but his arm was remembering for him; she was also small. His arm tightened involuntarily to hug her. It didn't have to be her. But she was here, and it had to be someone. He hugged her in a deeper muteness than he had been in when he tried to say her name. His arm upset her balance, pulling her to sit from her crouch.

 

"Damnit, Shepard," she said with exasperation as he pulled her in. He didn't know why, didn't care why, but she didn't protest his hold on her further.

 

Finally he felt some relief from the tightness in his eyes. Liquid heat seeping from them was loosening a crust of snot and blood that sealed them. He felt around for a wall to rest his back against. He didn't let her go and she didn't say anything. He rested his head against the top of hers, let his eyes wash themselves with the relief he felt. The red sand and booze, the beating and the person next to him--together they had given him the tiniest opening through which to drain just a fraction of the guilt and the deadness.


	9. Chapter 9

_Fuck._

 

It was worse than any other hangover in his recent memory. The room spun like a bomb had gone off next to him in an ear-drum-shattering-and-vertigo-inducing blast. He felt empty, stripped and weak. Bits and pieces of the night before were trying to scratch their way through the rubble of the morning as he struggled, lurching again to the bathroom in preparation for projectile regurgitation. He emptied the remaining contents of his gut into the bowl, squeezing his temples with his fists against the brutality of his headache. Spitting bile and saliva, he noticed a copper note to the combination. Oh, yeah _...I was in a fight._  
  


He crawled into the shower, but the burst of water wasn't much of a relief. It woke every splinter and slice with a stinging vengeance.  _I must look like that human reaper right about now._ The worst of the sting was concentrated around his face. As he scooped water up to assess the damage he found splits on his cheekbones, the bridge of his nose and his lip would carry a scar.  _"Long term memory is intact. So's the rest of you. Probably." Jack._ Jack had been there. She had found him, blood blind and wasted. He couldn't remember getting home, so she must have brought him. He sat in the shower, bending to let the water wash over him. He let the night come back to him.

 

The fight itself had started small enough. It was only meant to be an outlet, but it had escalated into a full out brawl. The group that had seemed isolated wasn't. They had more than enough friends in that bar. He had gone farther than he had expected on red sand and grief, but it hadn't been far enough. He imagined that he was KO'd, carried and dumped outside the bar. He couldn't say how far from the bar. And, he recalled uneasily, that he couldn't say whether there had been casualties. He didn't feel bad about that kind of thing in principle. No one in that place was an innocent. It bothered him that he didn't know more than that he didn't care. Not knowing testified to how far out of his head he had been.

 

And then there was Jack. He couldn't remember getting home, but he remembered the rest.  _Of all the fucking people._ He didn't have anything against her. On the contrary. She had been a valued member of the SR-2. She'd done her job, gotten them through the swarms, fought like the Devil himself.  _Herself._ But that was hardly the whole of it.

 

Jack was attractive. And when she propositioned him in her hole in the hull, he took the hint and the opportunity. He shut his eyes remembering the wildness of it, the violence with which they had taken each other. He didn't think much of it at the time. He figured it was a mutual relief from boiling tensions. _She was a big enough girl to make the offer, she was big enough to know what it meant._ Which was, not much. He figured that was mutual too. He had even left that scene to see Miranda. Jack was brooding and volatile, tattooed and flaunting it...in a word, she was too young and had more issues than the Asari Councilor to table. When Miranda made her feelings clear, he left the incident filed under, "one-time thing, never to be repeated." 

 

He wasn't feeling much better, but he guessed he couldn't stay in his shower all day. He managed to stand and towel off, dress lightly and head to his kitchen to make coffee. Caffeine started to clear some of the haze, but he wasn't used to red sand withdrawal coupled with a hangover. He reasoned that it might be a couple of days before he saw any kind of clarity. 

 

He realized, he hadn't seen Jack. He hadn't seen her once since defeating the Reapers. It wasn't embarrassment or anything of the kind. But it had been her. He didn't know what she looked like now, how she dressed...and she had found him and brought him home. He shifted with a kind of discomfort. She had been witness to the greatest melt down in his personal history and had even had the grace not to be there, not to rub his face in concern or care or even respect. He didn't deserve it.

 

 


End file.
